FEMA maps: Town mounting an appeal

The Town of Scituate will be filing an appeal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) questioning the assumptions made in the calculations of the new Flood Insurance Rate Maps.

Ruth Thompson

The Town of Scituate will be filing an appeal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) questioning the assumptions made in the calculations of the new Flood Insurance Rate Maps.

During the Sept. 17 Scituate Board of Selectmen meeting, Town Administrator Patricia Vinchesi explained that the town had engaged a consultant, Ransom Engineering and Scientists, to analyze the maps.

“You need to have an expert who actually knows how these maps get determined,” said State Representative Jim Cantwell, D-Marshfield, who attended the Sept. 17 selectmen meeting. “We strongly believe FEMA got some data wrong. Their conclusions are so outlandish.”

Cantwell said the town’s decision to appeal the maps is a “huge step and a concrete step toward changing the current situation facing Scituate.”

“Hopefully this will generate scientific arguments we can use with our federal political leaders for substantive change,” he said.

Vinchesi said towns may apply for an appeal for larger areas, but that this does not take the place of appeals individual homeowners must apply for regarding their personal property.

The deadline to file an appeal is Oct. 17.

The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 requires changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that would help to make the program more financially stable. Flood insurance, flood hazard mapping, grants, and the management of floodplains would see change.

The new flood maps affect approximately 500 homes in Scituate.

Many homes and properties that were previously not considered part of a flood zone now fall into a flood zone category. This means that homeowners with a mortgage will be required to purchase flood insurance, an additional cost outside of standard homeowners insurance policies. The price of flood insurance depends upon the level of flood risk.

Cantwell and Vinchesi have been working closely with the Town of Marshfield to collaborate on a regional strategy to appealing the FEMA maps and educating the public.

“The town leaders and staff, citizen leaders and our state delegations are doing all we can to both educate people about the Act and advocate for changes to this federal legislation,” Cantwell said.

Earlier this week, the Marshfield board of selectmen voted to hire consultants to prepare data for an appeal of the maps.

Hearings

Earlier in the day of Sept. 17, Cantwell, Vinchesi, Selectman Chairman Shawn Harris, Selectman Marty O’Toole, along with former selectman Joe Norton, and several Marshfield officials, attended a hearing of the Financial Services Committee – a legislative committee that has jurisdiction for all insurance and banking matters for Massachusetts, at the State House.

Cantwell was previously on this committee for four years and through that experience said he had some concerns about how coastal communities were paying a premium for homeowners insurance, and how flood insurance was being calculated.

The purpose of the Sept. 17 hearing, he said, was to “spark an investigation by the state commissioner of insurance into this current national flood insurance rate proposal.”

“If any private insurer for car, health or homeowners insurance attempted to increase their rate to consumers by 25 percent each year for four to six years we would have lawsuits, investigations, and recriminations, against that private insurance company,” he said. “I am looking to apply that same standard to what the federal government is looking to do with the flood insurance.”

It was a panel of bankers, realtors, public safety and town officials, and citizen leaders from the Scituate Coastal Coalition and the Marshfield Coastal Coalition testifying in favor of this legislation (House 865 – An Act Relative to an Investigation of Flood Insurance Rates).

“The best news from today is that we have grown from being a Scituate/Marshfield effort to now being recognized as a statewide crisis,” Cantwell said.

According to Cantwell, at the end of the hearing the two co-chairs of the Financial Services Committee announced that the testimony that they had just heard convinced them to take immediate action in sending a communiqué to the governor and the insurance commissioner asking they immediately commence this investigation.

He pointed out that that after making that announcement they cautioned that the state government could only make recommendations.

Cantwell was flying to Washington D.C. the morning of Sept. 18 to be present at a U.S. Senate hearing regarding the one-year review of the implementation of the Biggert-Waters Act.

Though he said he would not be able to testify, Cantwell said that attending the hearing “is an opportunity to convey our local and state concerns about this Act to the federal officials whom we need to amend federal legislation.”

He said the national director of FEMA and the director of the national insurance program would be testifying at the hearing.

Closer to home

David Ball, a member of the Scituate Seawall Committee and president of the Cedar Point Association, he has heard a “scattering” of people may be filing an individual appeal – a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA).

Speaking before the selectmen at their Sept. 17 meeting, he said he was “thrilled” that the town would be filing an appeal.

He said the Scituate Coastal Coalition has been getting numerous calls regarding the maps Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012.

“The concern is what can be done to fix the problem and what will the new premiums be,” he said.

Ball said FEMA is correctly saying that only Congress can amend or delay the implementation of the new premium rates.

“The next phase of rate increases go into effect on Oct. 1, so time is now short,” he said.

Ball, along with the selectmen, praised Cantwell and Vinchesi, as well as town officials and employees who have been working tirelessly to assist residents with the new maps and address questions.

“Everyone who has looked at the issue is well aware that if this all plays out to the worst possible scenario it will decimate the local tax base and will place many homeowners in an impossible financial situation,” he said.

He strongly urged people whose property is showing up on the new maps as falling into the flood zone to go out and get flood insurance now.

He also reminded those who currently have flood insurance not to let their policy lapse.

“If you do you will immediately have to pay actuarial rates,” he said.

Find out more

The new FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) for Scituate can be viewed online at the town website at http://www.town.scituate.ma.us/townhall.html

The map is also available for viewing at town hall in the zoning office, and at the Scituate Town Library.

Links to various federal and state personnel to direct questions on the preliminary flood maps, flood insurance, and the appeals process can also be found on the Town of Scituate website.

For more information about flood zone mapping, and the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 visit www.fema.gov.